H.A.L.F.: The Makers

by Natalie Wright

  “I’ve bugged Robert’s phone. I uploaded a background program that monitors his phone and automatically records all his calls.”

  “Oh.” Anna hadn’t exaggerated. Her family really was a den of snakes. “‘Pull the weed’. Croft took Anna so your father can what? Kill her himself?”

  Thomas shook his head vigorously. “No, no, no.” His voice was panicked. “Don’t you understand anything?”

  “I guess not. Sorry, Thomas, I wasn’t raised in a family where the preferred pastime is playing spy versus spy.”

  Thomas thumped his chest. “It’s me, you moron. I’m the weed.” Tears filled his eyes. “Father was supposed to take care of me a long time ago, but Mother intervened. He gave in to her and allowed me to live despite my obvious muddying of the gene pool.”

  “Why’d he refuse to obey Croft then but follow his orders now?”

  “For starters, Hannah’s beautiful and knows how to seduce a man to get her way. And the fact that she’s a Croft by birth may have played a role too.”

  Their mother is a Croft too? Their family is more complicated than particle physics.

  “But what does Croft have against you? What do you mean by muddying the gene pool.”

  “I’m imperfect.”

  “We all are, but –”

  “I’m autistic, Jack. I can function at a high level if I stay to myself. A genius with machines but dumb as a stone when it comes to interacting with other people. And I’m manic-depressive on top of it. The point is, I’m different. Too different to be part of Croft’s master plan of rebuilding a more perfect world below ground while this one goes to hell.”

  The more Jack heard about Croft, the more he detested the man. Thomas wasn’t someone Jack wanted to hang out with. It was difficult to relate to him. But no matter what the guy’s issues were, he had no less right to live than the Croft guy. “Maybe that explains why Croft had it in for you before. But why’s he after you now?”

  Thomas shook his head and rocked back and forth. “He warned Father. Told him if I ever hacked him again, there would be no reprieve. ‘A weed will grow from time to time even in a well-tended garden,’ he’d said.”

  Croft sounded positively Machiavellian. At least according to the Sturgis clan. But Commander Sturgis was willing to off three teens because they’d seen too much. Jack kept Thomas’ pedigree in mind and took what he said with a pinch of salt.

  “And you’re saying this Croft guy wants you dead as punishment for – what? Hacking his computer?”

  Thomas nodded. “It’s a major affront. I got in without his knowledge. Without his permission. It’s all about control.”

  “Why didn’t he just nab you instead?”

  Thomas wiped his face with his hands. “I don’t know.” He sighed. “Maybe because it’s more dramatic this way. He has a flare for melodrama. Besides, it’s a way to show Robert that no one is safe, not even his precious Anna.”

  Thomas sounded convinced of his own beliefs about Croft’s motives, but Jack wasn’t. What if the guy plans to kill them all, like he did the Elliots? A chill ran up his spine. Thomas was hanging on by a thread. Jack decided not to share his fears with the guy.

  “What will your father do?” Even with the bad blood Jack had with his dad, he couldn’t imagine a father killing his own son.

  Thomas’ lips were set in a thin line. His sadness was gone, the tears dried. “I expect he’ll do as Croft told him to. He’ll pull the weed out by the roots.” His voice was dry and devoid of emotion.

  “I don’t think your da – Robert will kill you.”

  “Of course he won’t do it himself. Killing’s a messy business. He’ll have a hit ordered on me. He could have a marksman out there right now.” Thomas tilted his head back toward the huge expanse of windows.

  Thomas had the windows covered with light-blocking blinds and thick drapes. Not exactly easy pickin’s for a marksman’s gun. But glass wouldn’t keep out a barrage of bullets if someone really wanted him dead.

  Anna’s oddball twin seemed resigned to his fate, but Jack was not. “You’re not going to sit in this hole, reeking of BO, and wait to die, are you?”

  Thomas’ face was an impassive mask. “I’ll die. She’ll live. It’s what Croft wants. He always gets what he wants in the end. I know that now.”

  Jack hadn’t lived in the Sturgis world of family espionage on a global scale, but he’d seen plenty of movies. And in the movies, the bad guy never just gave the goods over. He’d wanted to spare Thomas’ feelings, but it was clear he couldn’t do that now. “You don’t think he’s just going to hand her over, do you?”

  Thomas slowly turned his head toward Jack. His eyes had been vacant, but he blinked and a furrow creased his brow. “But he promised. ‘Weed the garden and no harm will come to your butterfly,’ he said.”

  Jack let out an incredulous laugh. “And Croft never lies?”

  “This is not a joke.”

  Jack bit back his ironic smile. “I know it’s not. I’m not laughing at you. It’s … Look, we need to follow through with what Anna started. This Croft asshole is going to let billions of people die just so he can become the all-powerful ruler over a mess of a world, but by god, he’ll be number one. Billions dead, Thomas. We need to stop him.”

  “I don’t care about the billions. I only care about the one.”

  And Jack believed that Thomas meant it. The guy only cared about his own tiny piece of the world. “You don’t have to care about saving the world. Leave that to Anna and me. Care about her. Help me get Anna and Alecto out of there. Then we both get what we want.”

  “And Croft will not.”

  “Exactly.”

  Thomas said nothing for a few minutes. He rested his chin on his steepled fingers, his eyes vacant. Silence filled the space between them. Jack shifted his weight from one cheek to the other, but Thomas remained fixed.

  “You spent a few days with her. Bonded over a road trip and petrol fumes. That doesn’t mean you know her. You know nothing about her – or me and my family. You’re just the hired help, Jack Wilson. Let me save you some heartache. You’re not going to be a hero and get the girl. We Sturgises stick to our kind.”

  “You mean the one percent stays with the one percent.”

  Thomas waved his hand in the air as if sweeping away what Jack had said. “You seem like a nice guy. Someone caught up in something way out of his league. My own father will order a hit on me because Croft told him too. I mean douche bags like us – we stick to our own kind. Not very sporting of us otherwise.” He leaned forward and looked intently at Jack. “Do your job and go back home. Forget about Anna.”

  “You’re assuming I was going to make a play for her. No offense, she’s your sister and I know you love her, but she’s not my type. I have a girlfriend.”

  “You mean the girl that flew away in a spaceship?”

  “Yeah, that one.”

  Thomas threw back his head and let out a dry laugh. “Talk about emotionally unavailable.” His face shifted and any hint of humor was gone. It was like someone had flipped a switch inside of him. “Time to get to work.”

  He sprang from his chair like he’d been ejected and tripped over a stack of papers on his way to his desk. He wheeled himself to his computer station and took the helm.

  “Wach’ya doin there, Thomas?”

  “Finishing what I began. We’re going to get Alecto away from Croft. And with any luck, Anna will be there too.”

  “We need a side entrance or something.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Thomas swirled his chair and faced Jack. “Because we’re going to walk through the front door.”

  36

  TEX

  As soon as Erika said she had a plan for disrupting the Conexus, Tex knew what she meant. The Regina.

  Xenos knew as well. She shrank back from Erika, wringing her hands, her eyes wild. “No. You cannot. You must not.”

  Erika reac
hed a hand out to Xenos. “It’s the only way.”

  Xenos flinched away from Erika’s attempt to comfort her.

  “Fill in the blanks for me here, Erika,” Ian said.

  “We have to kill their leader. If a few of them dying disrupts them a little bit, taking out their queen will –”

  “Utterly destroy them,” Tex said. Though his voice was as flat and emotionless as always, his stomach lurched and his mind reeled. The Regina had been the grand maestro of his symphony of pain. She was responsible for the countless days of starvation, cold, and agony so great that he wished to die rather than endure one more second of it.

  But the Regina was also his savior. She had gotten inside his head and in a way that was beyond simple telepathic communication. The Regina had wound her way into his grey matter, and at some point they had become one. For a time, Tex did not know where he stopped and she began. It was an intimacy he had not shared with anyone else. The Regina was both his mother and lover, the devil and the goddess, abuser and savior. He both loved and hated her, each with an equal ferocity. A part of him would enjoy pulling the trigger himself, yet he also knew that he would deeply mourn the loss of her.

  Tex’s emotions were a confusing whirlpool of conflict that brought a fresh wave of queasiness. He could not deny that Erika’s strategy was a sound one. Strategically, taking out the Regina would effectively nullify the Conexus threat. She was like the central gear that connected all the others. If she was gone, the great Conexus machine would fly apart.

  Xenos whimpered and her face was wet with tears. Tex took her hand in his. “It is frightening. I understand.” He reached out to her with his mind and tried to comfort her in a way that only Conexus and hybrids could. But Tex found it difficult to reach her in that way. It wasn’t so much that she had the strength to keep him out – there was no evidence of her pushing against him. It was more that she lacked the lattice necessary to build the bridge between their minds. It explained why she was unable to heal him more thoroughly. And why the Conexus referred to her as Infractus. She likely only got bits and pieces of their telepathic communication.

  Despite the difficulty of communicating with her in that way, he had a calming effect on her anyway. She stopped crying and trembling.

  Erika moved closer to Tex and caught his eye. “Are you okay?”

  Tex twisted the drawstring on his pants as he fought back tears. “None of you humans can understand – will ever know what she is – was – to me.” Tex nodded his head to Xenos. “To us. Your plan is sound. But I cannot … do not ask me to … I will not destroy her. I can show you where she rests, but I will play no further part in her death.”

  “Wait. You’re either with us or against us,” Ian said.

  Ian was drawing a line in the sand as if it were that simple. Us or them. But Tex and Xenos were both ‘us’ and ‘them’.

  “I see no reason to force such an ultimatum,” Dr. Randall said. “He said he’d help us find her. It will be up to us to take her out.”

  Ian’s lips were pursed and he glared in Tex’s direction. Perhaps he no longer has faith in me. Erika was uncharacteristically quiet, her brows knitted as she regarded him. Maybe she too is trying to make up her mind about whether she trusts me.

  “Erika, what do you think?” Ian asked.

  She pulled the rifle off her back and held it in her hands like it was an additional appendage. “Lead the way, Tex.”

  Tex moved away from the wide archway that led them to Aphthartos. He moved swiftly down the hall and toward the room that housed the clones.

  The others followed closely behind him. He tried to walk as quickly as he had when he’d toured the Conexus world with the Regina. Xenos was not as gifted of a healer as Alecto, but she had managed to close the wound at the back of his head and the incision in his side. He no longer bled, but he was not yet strong enough for preternatural speed.

  Xenos had been correct, though. She could not heal what he no longer had.

  Tex had not told Dr. Randall everything. He could barely allow himself to form the thought let alone say it out loud. He suspected that he was missing more than a chunk of his liver and a kidney. His mind was muddled. His thinking slow. At first he thought it was because of the increased humidity since Dr. Randall turned on the ancient misting system. But now even in the much drier environment near Aphthartos, he felt like his brain was full of gooey honey.

  What if my mind is no longer whole?

  Tex led them to the ‘nursery’ that the Regina had shown him. As they stepped inside, Erika gasped. The humans stopped just inside the doorway, their mouths agape.

  “What is this place?” Erika whispered.

  She stepped forward slowly and stared into a large cylinder containing a nearly full-grown Conexus. Its eyes were closed and it floated peacefully in the viscous purple liquid. As she stared into the rounded glass, Erika’s features were distorted. Her eyes looked as large as Tex’s, her mouth stretched wide and her nose flattened.

  Dr. Randall inspected a smaller container that looked like the bottom half of a large, curved pea pod with a bubbled lid on top. In it lay a tiny Conexus fetus no more than twelve inches long. “Incredible.” His voice was a barely audible whisper. He walked slowly as he inspected the cylinders. “They’re – clones.”

  Tex had stayed beside the door, and Xenos stood behind him, practically clinging to his back. “Yes,” he said. “All of them are her children.”

  “Absolutely fascinating,” Dr. Randall said.

  “She is there. In the room at the end of this one. Xenos and I will take no further part. Do as you will.”

  “Thank you,” Erika said. “We’ll take it from here.” She smiled at him.

  Tex did not return the gesture.

  37

  ERIKA

  There were at least two dozen Conexus in various states of development growing in cylinders and smaller containers. Erika’s hairs were on end as she tiptoed amongst the rows of naked Conexus clones floating silently in the artificial wombs.

  Tex had pointed the way to the back of the room but had refused to follow. Erika tried to understand his choice but couldn’t. He looked like he’d been starved. When they found him, he was naked and shivering, blood trickling out of his head. He was bruised and cut. The way Erika saw it, the Conexus had tortured him and the Regina was their leader. Why he would refuse to take out the one that was responsible for inflicting so much pain on him was beyond her.

  Dr. Randall and Ian flanked her as they made their way through the rows of clones. All three stepped slowly and lightly as though any minute they might step on a bomb. Their rifles were held ready to shoot. Erika had been tense from the first moment they stepped over the threshold into the clone room. Her shoulder and neck muscles ached.

  The large room of clones narrowed down to a small corridor wide enough for only one of them. Erika took point with Ian close on her heels. The purple glow of the tanks was gone. The tiny hall was formed of chiseled-out rock, dank and musty. It opened up to a small cocoon of a room that smelled of dirt and mold.

  Erika moved to the right of the small doorway so that Ian and Dr. Randall could enter. They had to duck their heads to fit through.

  The room was silent except for the low whirr of a robotic arm that extended down from the ceiling. It moved slowly and deliberately downward toward the exposed abdomen of the Regina reclining on a stone chair.

  She was still, her eyes closed, her thin grey stomach exposed to the air. She lay in repose on a smooth stone reclining chair that looked as though it was formed from one large block of stone.

  Dr. Randall whispered into Erika’s ear, “Do you think she’s asleep?”

  Erika shrugged. Her nose wrinkled up from the foul smell of the place. A chill ran up her spine and she involuntarily shuddered. The Regina appeared unaware of their presence. Their timing was perfect, but Erika couldn’t make her feet move closer.

  The robotic arm plunged a long needle into the Regina’s
stomach. She didn’t flinch. Her eyes remained closed.

  “What is it doing to her?” Ian asked.

  They watched silently as something was sucked up into a vial attached to the needle. After watching for a few more seconds, Dr. Randall said, “I believe it’s harvesting her eggs.”

  She truly is their mother.

  Erika’s resolve to kill the Regina was melting. It was one thing to create the plan but another to carry it out. Resting supine before her, the Regina looked vulnerable and small. Erika stood at the side of her bed. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  Ian stepped to the other side and faced Erika. “You don’t have to. I will.” He put the rifle to his shoulder and aimed at her heart.

  Dr. Randall stood at her feet. “It’s a shame it has to end this way. We could learn so much from them if only –”

  “If only they didn’t want to wipe us out with a deadly virus?” Ian asked. He squinted through the gun’s sights.

  Another metal robotic arm came from the ceiling, its pincers holding a metal tool that resembled a scalpel. The blade of the instrument caught the light and glinted. Erika braced herself to witness the knife cutting into the Regina. Instead, it swung down swiftly toward Ian.

  “Ian!” Erika shouted. “Move.” Erika lunged across the table. Her knee landed on the Regina’s naked stomach as Erika pushed Ian out of the way of the swinging knife.

  Ian fell to the ground. Erika rolled off the table and tumbled down beside him. The knife had narrowly missed Ian and had nearly cut a hole in Erika. It grazed her back and sliced a rip into Erika’s shirt. Blood trickled down her back.

  Erika helped Ian to his feet. The Regina’s eyes were now open. They stared toward the ceiling, wide and dark. The reclining stone chair that had looked as though it was hewn from a solid block of stone began to rise and put the Regina into an upright position.

  Erika’s hands trembled as she reached for the gun she’d slung back around her shoulder when she’d jumped across the table to push Ian out of the way. Her hands were sweaty and her fingers slid off the grip as she tried to pull her gun into position.